An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (Frontiers in Physics)

The book is divided into three parts: In the first part, the authors introduce the Feynman diagrams as a prelude to QED and continue on by an elaboration of the Klein-Gordon equation, the Dirac field, perturbation theory and radiative corrections. In the second part which mainly deals with renormalization, discussion starts out with a survey of the functional methods, followed by the counting of ultraviolet divergences, the role of symmetry and the concept of effective action, the renormalization group (Wilson's approach and CS equation), and finally there is a foray into the condensed matter physics via the topic of critical exponents and nonlinear sigma models. In the third and final part, the focus shifts to the non-abelian gauge theories, their invariance, quantization, QCD, operator products, anomalies and spontaneous symmetry breaking (Higgs mechanism, G-W-S electroweak theory) culminating in a chapter on QFT at the frontier, outlining a brief on grand unified theories and supersymmetry, also pointing out some references for further study.

The senior author of the text has been an affiliate of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) who has learned field theory from three of its master's, S. Coleman, S. Weinberg, and K. Wilson. The authors' collective intent --following the example set by Bjorken and Drell-- has been to strike a perfect balance between abstract formalism, intuitive explanations, and practical calculations. There are also a large number of explicit calculations carried out in the text. Due to tactical considerations and space limitations however, the experimental developments of QFT, proof of some of the more advanced results, and an account of the history of the subject have been mostly left out to the other references. Having said all this, one other source which is surely worth taking up along with Schroeder and Peskin is a text by Michio Kaku, published by the Oxford University Press (1993) which contains short introductory chapters on several advanced topics.


An excellent book but with a deceptive title   February 21, 2006
 7 out of 7 found this review helpful

An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory is an excellent book, I have read it once and I keep going back to it when I need something, and that happens very often. And I have never been disappointed so far: the book has got everything I need. However, the title is very deceptive: it is not a Quantum Field Theory primer, it is a book that one can read (and enjoy!) only after reading easier books, in this respect I find Michele Maggiore's "A Modern Introduction to Quantum Field Theory" (OUP 2004) and the classical "Field Theory: a Modern Primer" by Pierre Ramond (Perseus, 2nd edition 1999) more suitable.


Modern treatment of the subject   December 5, 1999
 1 out of 6 found this review helpful

One of the best books on QFT. Contains a lot of useful information good for brushing up and hand-on research. Would like to see a second volume by these authors on the more advanced topic in QFT.


Good Book, but Mathematically...   May 17, 1999
 2 out of 16 found this review helpful

I always wonder why physists won't hesitate to take hermitian conjugates of operators on complex vector space. In this book the barred spinor fields are defined as daggered fields multiplied by gamma^0, but taking conjugate using the standard inner products between Dirac spinors naturally leads to the barred fields. Don't they worry whether using "apparently" coordinate-dependent expression results in something wrong?